


don't get me wrong, dear

by singmyheart



Series: he makes my heart a cinemascope screen [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: Bad Decisions, Drinking & Talking, F/M, Floor Sex, I'm so glad that's a tag, complicated adult emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-19 02:05:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11303487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singmyheart/pseuds/singmyheart
Summary: She takes a seat at the bar at quarter after, on the dot. Not a booth; those are small, high-backed, tucked close. Too intimate. Flirts with ordering while she waits and decides against it. Has to force herself not to watch the door.





	don't get me wrong, dear

**Author's Note:**

> this is a sequel to [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10219184?view_full_work=true). you probably know what to expect.

 

 

**five years ago**

It's mocking her — the “see me” scrawled at the top of the page, red Sharpie, next to the 97%. Last ten minutes of class are an eternity, with that staring her in the face. Jasmine cranes her neck from the next row over to read it, gives Pippa a Meaningful look.

Finally the bell goes off, shrill, and they're free. Pippa tells Jas go ahead, they'll catch up in a minute; Jas spares her one last exaggerated eyebrow-waggle and goes, disappears into the crush in the hallway, everyone headed out for lunch.

Once the room is empty but for the two of them she says, “Mr. Miranda?” Like a question. He looks up and she waves the offending essay, crosses the room to his desk. “Something wrong with my paper?”

“What?” He looks confused for a second, brow furrowing, and then it clears. “Oh. No. Not at all.” Comes around to the other side of the desk, closer to her, and leans back on the edge of it. “I just wanted to ask you, are you planning to apply for college in the fall?”

“Um. I haven't thought about it?” This isn't strictly true: panic spiraling likely counts as thinking. “Probably not just yet, though. I might just… take a year.”

“Right,” he says, nodding, and chuckles at whatever her face is doing. “Don’t look so worried, it's just a question. I'm asking because — if you're looking for a letter of recommendation, I'm happy to write you one. And actually write it, not just throw my signature on some generic bullshit thing.”

“Oh.” For whatever reason she hadn't been expecting this at all, even though it makes total sense. He likes her, she knows he does, and he's not even the first of her teachers to offer. “Thank you, that's really nice of you… I just — don't really know what I'm doing.”

“Sure.” He's smiling a little as he leans forward, taps her paper. “This — I don't know if it's something you'd want to pursue, but this is really good, Pippa. Seriously. You know your stuff.”

“Thanks.” She doesn't really know what to do with this (he's so _much,_ with the eye contact, it's almost unsettling), sure she's blushing.  

“Anyway, look, I don't mean to put you on the spot,” he says, and sits back. “I just wanted to put it out there — the offer stands. If you want a hand figuring anything out, applications or financial assistance or any of that stuff… whatever you need. My door's open, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks, sir, I appreciate it.”

“Absolutely. Anytime. Now go,” and he raises his voice a little, “so Jasmine can stop pretending she's not eavesdropping.” He's grinning, though.

“I am not,” comes Jasmine’s voice from the hall, indignant, and they both laugh.

“That was nice of him,” Jas offers a minute later, when they're on their way out.

“It was,” Pippa agrees carefully, which turns into an embarrassing squeak of protest at the look on her face. “What — _stop._ God, what is wrong with you —”

“I didn't say anything! Not a damn thing —”

“Shut up,” Pippa mutters, token, as Jasmine dissolves into giggles.

 

*

 

**present day**

The house always seems smaller when she comes back to it. It's exactly the same as it's always been — faint stain on the living room rug, dripping kitchen tap, temperamental back door lock — but it's like the walls close in an inch or two whenever she turns her back. Well, it's not like she doesn't have time to get used to it, Pippa thinks, more than a little resentful.

She spends a week or so moving back in, getting settled, before she starts revisiting her old haunts. Has dinner with Jas and Anthony and Oak and a few of their other high school friends, and it's good; they're all in the same boat, toasting directionless post-grad life.

Jas and Anthony had stuck it out for a while, but the distance proved too much and they'd finally split last year. Things had stayed pretty amicable as far as Pippa knew, though, and watching them across the table from each other… she has a pretty good idea of where that’s headed. Swallows the kernel of bitterness that says she'll be third-wheeling all summer.

 

*

 

Tommy hugs her when he sees her — which, in addition to the fact that he almost manages a facial expression, is a little weird, though in a nice way. Pulls her behind the counter to talk, out of the way of the mess: half of the place is covered in plastic drop sheets (while they're renovating, he tells her, and she gathers that his feelings on this whole endeavor are, to say the least, mixed).

“That's not — Pippa?” Javi says, emerges from the kitchen dusting floury hands off on his jeans. He hesitates for a second over whether or not to hug her, laughs as she decides for them both, lifts her off her feet for a second.

“He emerges,” Tommy says, drily, and explains, “He's been in there for hours. God knows what he's been doing —”

“Experimenting,” Javi says, like _duh._

“Experimenting with costing me money. You want to just take some cash right out the till and set it on fire, cook over that?”

“I will if you don't get that goddamn stovetop looked at, I'm this close,” Javi warns, then tucks a hand into Tommy's back pocket and kisses him soundly on the cheek; Tommy grimaces but he bears it. Pippa's pretty sure it's only like fifteen percent a put-on.

“That's new,” she observes, a minute later, once Tommy’s disappeared into the basement office to yell at some people over the phone and she's in the kitchen with Javi, getting underfoot. She'd come home at Christmas, visited briefly, and hadn't thought anything was going on between them, but that — that looks like something.

Javi makes a considering sort of noise. “Not that new.”

“Really.”

“He'll say otherwise, but he's full of shit.”

“You look smug. I don't think I've ever seen you look smug.”

“That's the sex. Not to be crude.” He turns his music up (Smokey Robinson, unless she's mistaken) and offers her a spoonful of whatever he's got bubbling away on the stovetop. “Try that. It's hot, careful…”

“Javi, I want to bathe in that sauce, what the fuck.”

“I'll make extra.” He turns it down to simmer and washes his hands, asks her something she can't make out over the rush of water.

“What?”

“How’ve you been, I said.” He leans back against the edge of the sink, casts around for a towel, settles for drying off on the edge of his t-shirt instead. Suddenly serious.

“I'm okay,” she says reflexively. Sighs. “I guess. I mean — no job, no prospects, no plans. I wanna take a nap for like a month, but beyond that? I'm lost.”

“Sounds about right,” he agrees, nodding. “You seeing anyone?”

“You offering?”

“If you were fifteen years older and I was wired even slightly differently, we could talk.”

“Damn, way to let a girl down easy,” she says, laughing, clutches dramatically at her chest. “No, it's been — fuck. A while. Quite a while, actually.” She had dated at school, some; nothing serious. Nothing stuck. Not that she'd minded that; so many guys had turned out to be more trouble than they were worth and she'd never had the patience for the games, the “should I wait to text him back”, We're Just Hanging Out, cool-girl bullshit. Still, it had been nice, now and again, to have someone on her arm, to flirt and talk and go home with — what option does she have now? Date guys she'd known in high school? Please. “My life is _over,_ this is fine.”

“Probably,” Javi agrees, manages solemnity for all of a second. “So, okay, I can't help you on that front, but if you want a job, a paycheck…” Stage whisper. “I know a guy. And the kid we just hired is an idiot.”

“Aw, Pippa two-point-oh?” she asks, giggling.

“Uh, couple things,” Tommy protests, appearing at the door. “First of all, _we_ did nothing, _I_ hired him.”

“If you want to take responsibility that's fine with me —”

“Secondly, he's not that bad, he's just green —”

“I haven't seen him bring the right plate to the right person on the first try since he started. You know what I have seen, is him wearing the same fucking Foreigner shirt twice a week since he started —”

“Thirdly,” Tommy continues, louder, “he's like Pippa four-point-two if anything —”

“— he doesn't know who Foreigner _is_ , Tommy, I asked —”

“Fourthly — I had a fourth thing, what was it. What — coffee. I need coffee, the contractor's fucking around about schedules again and I need coffee, or possibly a blow to the head, I haven't decided.”

“Coffee’s that way,” Javi says patiently, pointing.

Tommy leaves and comes back a minute later with cups of espresso for himself and for her, which he tastes and promptly takes back. “Fucking hell, that's awful. Don't drink it. Did you do something?” He looks suspiciously at Javi.

“You roasted last,” Javi points out. “Foreigner —”

“He has a name, Javier —”

“I'd learn it if you weren't gonna fire him in about five minutes, _Thomas_ —”

“You are _such_ a dick.” They stare at each other for a moment, intently, and then Tommy sighs, throws up his hands. “Fine! Fine. I'm letting him go. He's an idiot.” He turns to Pippa and goes on over Javi’s obnoxious cry of triumph. “You didn't hear this, but come and talk to me in a few weeks.”

“I will,” Pippa declares, and he almost smiles.

Eventually, Javi sends her home (with a box of white chocolate raspberry scones tucked into her bag, no less). She's just texting her mom to see if she's in the mood for pizza or something and so she's not paying as much attention as she should be while she leaves — she runs smack into someone on their way in. Collides solidly with a torso and there's a hand on her arm to steady her, stop her falling. “God, sorry —”

“Are you okay, sorry —”

“I'm — oh. Uh. Lin. Hi.”

And it is Lin, blinking at her, silhouetted in the fading sun behind him. Somewhere underneath the sudden ringing in her ears it occurs to her to get a look at him: backpack, haircut, same worn shirt she'd seen him in a dozen times. She can't make it make sense, that he's just… here. Standing here, in front of her. “Pippa. Oh my god, hi.”

“Fancy meeting you here.” His hand still on her arm like maybe he's forgotten it's there.

“No kidding. Well — how are you, what have you been up to?” He sounds like a fucking normal human person, which registers dimly as irritating.

“I'm good, I've just been — I just got back.”

“Home for the summer, then?”

Home indefinitely, she doesn't say. “Yeah. How are you?”

“I'm good,” he says; seems to realize he's touching her and drops his hand. Rocks back on his heels, scratches the back of his neck. “I'm doing well, thanks. Listen, I actually have to run, though, so —”

“Oh, of course —”

“Do you — will you have a drink with me?”

She's caught so utterly off-guard by the question she doesn’t even think to say no. “Yeah. Sure, let's do that.”

“Cool,” he says, and his smile while maybe a little guarded is genuine. Something twists in her chest. “Um. Thursday's no good for me… tomorrow night?”

 _Say no, at least act like you have plans_. “Sure. That's fine.”

“I know a place, it's pretty new — I'll text you?” He fishes his phone from his pocket (back left, always the back left, which she didn't know she knew) and hands it to her.

Seems to take an eternity to key in her name and number and their fingers brush when she gives it back. “Okay, see you tomorrow, then.”

“Take care.” She can feel him watching her go.

 

*

 

Lin texts her the following morning: _Gallaghers, 8:30?_ Must be the new place he'd mentioned, she's never heard of it. Google tells her it's across town, more a lounge than a pub, fairly inoffensive-looking.

 _perfect,_ she texts back, and nothing further.

The next nine hours or so slip by quicker than she might have liked. She goes back and forth over whether or not to cancel, and then the window where she can do so without being totally rude slams closed. Tells herself not to be stupid; it's just a drink, not even dinner. If it's absolutely unbearable she can always stick him with the bill and leave.

She takes a seat at the bar at quarter after, on the dot. Not a booth; those are small, high-backed, tucked close. Too intimate. Flirts with ordering while she waits and decides against it. Has to force herself not to watch the door.

It's another twenty, twenty-five minutes before Lin shows, all apologies. “You weren't waiting long, I hope?”

“Not at all.”

“I'd be late to my own funeral, hand to God.”

“Some things don't change.”

“Guess not,” he says, lightly. Takes the seat next to her and leans forward a little to catch the bartender’s eye, gives that vague half-wave everyone does. “Can I get a gin and tonic, please, and… ?” He looks at her.

“Um — same, I guess, thanks.”

“Have you eaten? The food’s killer —”

“I did, actually, yeah. If you're hungry, though, feel free —”

“No, you know what, I'm good.” A beat, a moment of self-conscious silence, and then he turns toward her a little and says, “so,” with the air of a man who's told himself it's best to just dive right in. He hasn't quite dressed up but definitely cleaned up. Two-thirds of his hair is gone, gray dress shirt, sleeves haphazardly cuffed. She'd caught a whiff of cologne a minute ago as he'd kissed her cheek. “Heard you went off to college.”

Where had he heard that, she wonders. “I did, yeah.”

“And crushed it, I imagine.”

“Well, I got the degree and the horrifying pile of debt, if that can be termed ‘crushing it’.” God. He's trying to be nice, what is wrong with her. “It was good, though, mostly. Being home is kind of a mixed blessing…”

“Yeah,” Lin says, chuckling, “I remember how that was. I think I managed one summer back at my parents’ right after graduation, and then — got right the hell out of dodge.”

“What about you, you're still teaching?”

“Yeah, yeah. Same old.”

“You finish that novel?”

Something flickers across his face — mild surprise that she remembers? Like she could forget. “Almost. It's not quite — thank you.” This last to the bartender, who's sliding two glasses toward them. “Not quite fit for an audience yet, but it's in the home stretch, finally.”

She takes a sip of her drink for something to do with her hands and has to conceal a wince; she hates gin, why did she even order it. The moment for her to comment, congratulate him or ask some bullshit followup question about the book passes. Not that she knows enough to ask; he'd been so cagey and precious about it, before. Another silence, longer, heavier. They both start to talk at the same time, stop. “Sorry —”

“No, go ahead —”

 _God._ “You seeing anyone?” she asks, more because it's next on the list of polite catching-up questions than because she actually wants to know.

“Not recently.” It's the tone she recognizes as the one that means she won't get anything else out of him on this particular subject. And what the hell is this, that she can still peg that — the knowledge hits her low in her gut somewhere, rattles faintly the locked box marked _Lin_. “You?”

Again, she doesn't think to offer even a white lie. “Not recently.”

This smile doesn't quite reach his eyes. “Surely you're beating ‘em off with a stick?”

“I wouldn't say that.” It comes out more sharply than she intends and he hears it, there's no way he doesn't.

“Pippa,” he says, carefully. Her name in his voice is jarring, suddenly more than she can take. Can't look him in the eye, too afraid of what she'll find there — focuses instead on the lint on his shirtsleeve, his nervous fidgeting with his glass, knees of his jeans worn just a little faded and soft. Fraction of an inch and they'd be touching. “Listen, I just want you to know… and I know this is way too little way too late, but. How we left things — how I left things, I should say — it wasn't right, it wasn't how that should have happened —”

( _"I can't... I couldn't let myself — see you that way. It wasn't right, it's not — Christ, you don't —”_ )

“Stop. Don't.”

“Don't what?”

“I don't need you to,” and she's floundering, addressing his shoulder. “Clear the air, or try to… absolve yourself, or whatever it is you're trying to do, okay —”

“I'm just trying to say —”

“I don't want to hear it.” That's venomous, louder than she means to be; it makes Lin lower his voice in response, obviously in an attempt to get her to quiet down.

“Why are you here, then?” he asks patiently.

“Why am I here,” she repeats. Stalling and hating it. All at once she's eighteen again; so painfully, stupidly in love and determined to say the right thing, impress him, let him push her.

“Yeah. What'd you expect, coming here?” She wants to throw the question back at him — would, if she weren't so afraid of his answer. His tone’s still level but he's twitchy, restless.

She's not totally sure of her own answer, is the thing, not that she's about to admit that even though he probably already knows. He doesn't repeat himself, doesn't chase her, and she realizes he's giving her space to collect her thoughts — which is so abruptly, hotly infuriating it only serves to tie her tongue further. She looks at the second hand of his watch ticking away and he waits her out.

“I haven't missed you,” she says, savagely, instead of a real answer. Meets his eye, now, to discover his expression is openly, nakedly wounded; so much so that she has to swallow the reflexive apology poised on the tip of her tongue.

“I wouldn't expect you to.” It sounds hollow; five years ago she hadn't thought him capable of insincerity. Does that mean he's changed, or she has?

She downs the rest of her drink; god, yeah, gin is disgusting, this was not a good choice. As she sets the glass down Lin says, “oh, you've got —” and leans in to take her chin in his hand, drags his thumb lightly across her lip where her lipstick must have smudged. Instantly it clicks what he's done and he drops his hand like it's burned. “Ah — fuck, sorry. Reflex, I suppose.”

He wipes his hand off on a napkin, and he's looking at the rose-coloured smear on the white when Pippa says, “Take me home.”

His eyes snap up to hers, searching. He thinks she might be joking, maybe, as weak a joke as that would be. She's not. He clears his throat, nervously. “That's not… I don't think that's the best idea, do you?” He watches her uncross her legs, though.

“Probably not,” she agrees, lightly.

His car's the same; messy, disorganized, like him. The drive is endless, decades long, an age, and for half a second she entertains the thought of telling him to just pull over. Drop her at the next light and let her make her own way home.

But she doesn't, and then they're pulling into the parking garage, stepping into the elevator. Not talking. There's no way she's imagining the cloud of tension between them, thick enough to cut.

Down the hall (and it's like the fucking _Shining,_ or something, longer than makes sense); the clatter of his key in the lock seems loud. Closes the door behind her, backed up against it. She catches a glimpse of the kitchen over his shoulder, darkened and not changed an inch since she'd been in it last, and then Lin kisses her.

It's not at all tentative, not feeling her out, zero to sixty in a second. His hands on either side of her face. They stumble through the kitchen entangled, grasping, and she's drowning already, overwhelmed. Steps out of her heels, drops three inches — it makes him laugh against her and something small and petty rears its head; Lin twists away from her teeth in his lip with a muffled noise, more pain than arousal. She's got about half a second to revel in the thrill that provokes before she collides painfully with the side of the table and sends it skidding an inch or two across the floor; Lin at her back, so close she can feel his belt buckle through the thin fabric of her dress, her hips pushed right up against the wood. God, if he wants to do it like this, fucking let him, just bend her over right here. His hands over hers, pressed flat to the tabletop; she can just make out where her nails gouge little marks in the varnish.

“You finished?” he murmurs in her ear (panting, she's dimly satisfied to note). An indignant noise claws its way from her mouth — is she finished, _honestly_ — and she tries to tug her hands free mostly just to test his grip but he stops her. Pushes harder, the heels of his hands grinding into the backs of hers. “Hey. You done?”

What she's thinking is along the lines of _fuck you don't give me time to think about this just_ touch _me_ but what she says is, “Yes.” Just that, almost a snap. Must be good enough because he backs up just enough to let her up, let her turn around, and he's kissing her again, starving.

She's disoriented, off-kilter, doesn't realize they've made it to the bedroom until they get there. Hit the floor in a heap. Her ankle cracks painfully off the dresser but fuck it, it's all running together anyway, his nails in her back, the bruise surely blooming on her thigh. Both of them wrestling out of their clothes; she hears a stitch rip as she kicks her panties off. They're an old, dingy cotton pair she'd put on to convince herself that something could stop her from this. Stupid, so stupid —  the decision not to shave either was still acknowledging the possibility, whatever tiny flicker of hope that they'd end up here. _Here_ being her straddling him, his sigh as she drags herself lightly along the length of his cock just to catch the head against her clit, what is she _waiting_ for —

“Wait, fuck,” he chokes out, “what the fuck, hang on.” Her stomach drops, but he's just craning back for the drawer of the bedside table behind him.

(The drawer that she knows to contain condoms and lube, and she wonders if he's still got that cheap pair of cuffs, that little bullet vibrator he'd bought. If he's used them with anyone else, or if he hasn't touched them since that time — her strung out and begging, trying to muffle her needy desperate sounds in his shirt; him patient and thorough and relentless.)

“It’s fine,” falls out of her mouth before she can stop it. “I'm on the pill, it's fine, just.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lin mutters, sounding pained, but he lets her, lets her take him in hand and ease him inside of her slow, slick warm slide until their bodies are flush. _Fuck._ It's been a while and it does hurt a little as she starts to move but it's still so blindingly good she almost can't breathe and _fuck_ him for this, for being the only one to pull her out of herself like this, to wake her up. The handful of guys at school hadn't come anywhere close, a couple had laughed at her, one had spanked her when she asked but then never called her back — nothing like this, no one like him.

And this, this is a world apart from the last time (the only other time, a hotel bed and Lin in her ear, _you're so fucking sweet, so tight, wanted this for so long_ ), skin and sweat. She's got a hand just under his throat to steady herself and in a brief fit of something insane she pictures sliding her fingers a little higher; he's so vulnerable, his eyes half-lidded. He brushes her clit and she nearly comes right then, burning up, biting down on her own lip to stop the moan. So wet she can see it, shining on his fingertips in the half-dark.

He sits up suddenly and that does something to the angle that knocks both of them sideways for a second, gasping, sloppy and perfect. “God, just fucking come,” he rasps against her mouth, catches her around the back of the neck, “come on my cock, Pip, give it up —”

Of all things _that's_ what does it, shoves her over the edge, breath caught. It's hard and ugly and it's barely subsided before the second one starts building; he's warning her and she spurs him on, dazed, reckless. “Do it, Lin, come on,” and he lets slip what might be a _fuck_ and follows her over, lets go. Sick kind of satisfaction at feeling him finish in her.

He reaches for her again to skim over her clit and she jerks, shaky and oversensitive, but she knows she can push through, come again as long as he just doesn't stop — breathes out a curse and he laughs a little wildly against her neck. “Aw, you've had it rough, haven't you? Too many nice college boys, forgot what it could be like, didn't you —”

“Shut _up,_ ” she snaps; even though he's only saying it to get a rise out of her he's still right and she hates it. “God, shut up, you don't know what you're talking about —”

“Seems like I do,” he murmurs, low and knowing, catches the blood in the water. “Look at you…” Pulls his hand back — is he really going to make her ask, she'll get up and walk out before that happens — she's going to lose her fucking mind, has already —

But he's only pushing; her back hits the carpet before she can blink. Doesn't need her hands on his shoulders encouraging him downward. His mouth on her hot and insistent, devastating, fuck, _yes_ — chasing the taste of himself out of her cunt. Under normal circumstances that'd do nothing but turn her off, but this is some kind of out-of-body experience, a fever dream she'll wake from any second, aching —

With a savage little thrill she catches his gasp at the scrape of her nails in his shoulder, the wince — and then it's over again, wire snapped, cliff's edge, freefall. Her back arched clear of the floor and his name stuck in her throat.

She comes back to herself by degrees: heart pounding, the start of rug burn on her knees, her mouth bruised and tender. Distantly she's aware of the sudden loss of contact when Lin lets go of her. Sprawls out on his back to stare at the ceiling, panting just as hard as she is.

He gets to his feet after a minute or two, or a year. Before the door of the ensuite bathroom closes behind him she can make out the red, angry-looking scratch on his shoulder, though she can't muster the energy to feel good about it. Listens to him spit in the sink, run the tap, while she surveys the damage: their clothes scattered, the drawer yanked nearly all the way out. The bed neatly made.

She finds her damp panties near the door, still has her dress in her hand when Lin comes back out, casting around for her bra, until he hooks it out from under the bed and hands it to her. She's stepping back into the dress, not looking at him, when he says, “You gonna be alright getting home?”

 _If I said no,_ she thinks, _what would you do?_ “Fine, thanks.” He doesn't bother to get dressed again beyond his boxers and undershirt before she's at the door. Bare feet, her dress zipped three-quarters of the way up, bra strap slipping. For want of something, anything else to say she comes out with, absurdly, “Good seeing you.”

Lin hacks out a brittle laugh, scrubs a hand over his face. “You, too,” he says, soft, like his lip isn't swelling up from where she'd bitten him.

She pulls her shoes back on in the empty kitchen, gathers up her bag from the floor. She's sure he can hear her leave.

It's not until later — after a shower, a sheet mask, clean sheets onto the bed she's slept in for the last two decades — that she notices the bra she'd worn home isn't hers.

**Author's Note:**

> well that was fun!!!
> 
> title from "Summer in the City" by Regina Spektor. 
> 
> I like comments! you know where to find me, come yell at me. if you need anything, let me know.


End file.
